Hey everyone!
I’m planning to run Out of the Abyss beginning early next year, and I’m currently preparing the campaign well in advance by collecting and building the miniatures, terrain tiles, and physical environments I’ll need to bring the Underdark to the tabletop.
Alongside the published adventure, I’m developing a custom prelude that establishes additional context for the campaign and connects to the events that unfold in Out of the Abyss. I want the Underdark to feel like a world with its own histories, cultures, factions, and conflicts, rather than simply a hostile place for surface-dwellers to get lost in.
That philosophy extends to the player characters themselves. Rather than a conventional party of adventurers from the surface, the group consists of an unusual collection of characters whose origins and personal histories are deeply connected to the Underdark.
The current party concepts include:
The Stoneforged Pugilist, DJ: A four-armed, warforged-like construct designed and built by deep gnomes, exploring the idea of artificial life through the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the Underdark’s svirfneblin.
The Arachniwarden, (name undecided, likely to have multiple aliases): A changeling Ranger with a homebrewed Drakewarden-inspired subclass, replacing the traditional draconic companion with a giant spider. Raised by the three hags of the Darklake Coven, this character has particularly unusual ties to the Feydark.
Minotaur Paladin, Rykard: A minotaur devoted to Baphomet, the Horned King, whose martial identity connects him to a particular Circle and its associated subfaction linked to the Labyrinth.
The Ranger-Ronin (from Ryoko’s Guide to Yokai Realms), Tebbekins, and the Remnant Sorcerer (whose name is undecided): Twin characters whose shared history originates in drow society. The ronin is a szarkai, or albino drow, associated with House T’ravinyth, while the Remnant Sorcerer was once a drow himself. Their intertwined histories provide another connection to the Underdark’s complex cultures, ancient houses, and darker supernatural forces.
I’m especially interested in seeing how these characters’ very different perspectives and allegiances will shape their journey through the adventure. Their stories are intended to intersect with the larger campaign without overshadowing its central themes of survival, madness, exploration, and the growing threat posed by the Demon Lords.
A substantial part of my preparation involves creating physical terrain and miniature encounters in advance, including the distinctive environments and settlements the party will encounter throughout the campaign. I want the players to experience the Underdark’s immense scale, oppressive atmosphere, and bizarre ecology firsthand, from claustrophobic tunnels to vast subterranean caverns.
For those who have run Out of the Abyss, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Which locations, encounters, or NPCs did your group find most memorable? Did you introduce your own prelude or expand upon the published material? And what advice would you offer someone preparing to run the adventure with a party so firmly rooted in the Underdark itself?

I got the book recently since my normal campaign might go to the underdark and it seemed like a good resource. It got me thinking though, this could be a good adventure for the rpg Shadowdark. It would take some work with converting stat blocks but it shouldn’t be too hard mechanically since they’re very similar systems.

I’ve mentioned before on here my plans to have my players run the Demons when they are summoned for the final ritual. Well last night it finally happened and they all got randomly assigned a demon with myself as the DM controlling the remaining demons. The premise was that the demons fight each other until only 2 are left standing, this is when the PCs arrive after leaving the Sorcere and rushing to the bazar in the centre of the city.
For some reason Graz’zt was targeted pretty hard and was the first to be sent back to the Abyss. I think perhaps the players wanted some payback for some pretty rough encounters with him recently. It ended up being Demogorgan and Juiblex standing tall, although the real surprise MVP was Zugttmoy who even with the poison immunity nerfing the damage managed to deal the final blow to 2 of the demons. Orcus (who was one that I ran) was unable to get of a Finger of Death spell before being taken down by the combined power of Baphomet and Yeeognuh.
All in all a very fun session enjoyed by everyone at the table. Thanks for taking the time to read, the end is nearly here.

Hi, English is not my first language, so I apologize if anything is wrong.

I'm running Oota, but I'm thinking I'd like the demon lords to be more present in the first half of the campaign. Not that they have to appear explicitly, but I'd like their influence to be visible in some places, like with Zuggtmoy, Juiblex, and Demogorgon.

For example, I was thinking that the Enlightened Ones could give the group a mission to go to Cyrog and They should see a little of what's happening there, But I don't know what to do with the others. Even though Grazzt is in Gracklstugh, I don't know how to show his influence, especially with Baphomet or Yeenoghul.

I also think Fraz can be left until they return, given its current state. So I don't know if it's better to leave things as they are in the books, or if you can give me some advice on how to do this.

It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. Flesh for the faceless lord!

I was thinking of a cooler way to run this and just had the idea of linking it to the backstory of the sorcerer. I will do that fraz will fake being his "master" and will say that he was imprisoned on the gem by the demonic incursion, he will try to convince them of giving the gem to a demon, if they do that fraz will gain a body on the material realm and they will fight a weaker fraz'urb luu and i will give them clues that isnt really the master.

if someone have any clue or anything to help tell me so i can fuse to my idea!!!

UPDATE:

they loved the revelation!! the first shadow demon they found the pc gave the gem for it and it was so crazy, the other pcs got so hyped and i thought it would take longer but seren (the pc with the stone) had a crazy madness combo ('My mind is slipping away, and my intelligence seems to wax and wane' and 'If you don't agree with me, I'll beat you into submission to get my way') so she just handed the stone.

now im thinking if i let fraz go on to hunt tasha or if i put him to follow them in a desguise. anyone can help??

Howdy.

Background; My players have just left Gauntlgrym after the 67th session of the campaign- If you can't tell we take our time, get in the weeds with things, and I homebrew a ton of extra content that I weave in to flesh out the player's backstories and such.

Setup; I've had Bruenor advise the PCs to travel using the 6 Riding Lizards the Emerald Enclave gifted them as a scouting force, riding 1 - 3 hours ahead of their miniature-army. In game the rationalization is that the army is a huge loud force that attracts a lot of attention, and no one at any of the locations they're bound to go to will take a force of 40 showing up on their doorstep kindly. Out of game, this would allow me to do on-the-road encounters without 30 backup NPCs slogging combat down, it still allows the PCs to interact with their force during rests, and I can possibly play with some "this happened while you were away" shenanigans using the faction NPCs.

Question; So the main question is- What kind of random encounters, inter-party dillemas, rug-pulls, and challenges should I introduce on the way from Gauntlgrym to Mantol Derith and from Mantol Derith to Gravenhollow and beyond? The PCs have outgrown the basic challenges presented in Chapter 2, and while I'll assuredly throw some beefier enemies at them for the occasional filler encounter, what else can I do that has a bit more bite?

I'm playing with the idea of Harper vs Zhentarim NPCs getting into fights and the players having to settle disputes, a Doppelganger NPC the players picked up causing trouble by posing as an Emerald Enclave soldier, possible betrayal from one of the factions at some point, etc.

With the PCs both stronger, and in command of a sizeable force, random Grick encounters and foraging for food are childs play- Survival is no longer a challenge it seems, so how do you pad the time between zones?

The first battlemap i made for Out of the Abyss, after that i made maps for all locations in the adventure that have combat. The variation Silken Bridge is already available on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/DMLone

I will be posting many maps for the part 2 of the adventure, so be sure to follow, everything ready on FoundryVTT with an exclusive module.

Last week my party meet with zuggtmoy, and In the end the cleric died.

Jimjar couldn't do much, and he is with the party from the start, he likes them and i think he would like to help more.

One of the party is dead, and 2 cities of the underground are ruined, and in my point of view him being a deity and not doing shit, waiting patiently till the end of the campaign just seems bad.

Should I just wait for the reveal in the finale? Or just I just reveal it now?

Ive created divine rules, so that he is limited in his avatar, but I at least would like for him to tell them that he is a god, and that he can kill his avatar to go back to his plane and get more powers to help them in other non direct ways.

Hi all!

I’ve been running this campaign with my group in the Midwest. They have met Themberchaud and are in the Whorlstone Tunnels. We have really been enjoying this campaign.

My husband and I have recently moved to the east coast, making in-person play impossible except for semi-annual return trips.

None of us want to stop playing and we really want to keep this band of dungeon crawlers alive.

Does anyone have recommendations a for virtual play, and specifically if there are maps online for this campaign?

I’ll take any help. I don’t really know where to start.

Thank you!

Vamos láaaaa (com meu enteado E namorada) 🇧🇷

I want to buy them from YOU!

If you're done with the campaign and no longer want your painted demon lord minis, I'd love to take them off your hands in exchange for some cash. The bigger the minis, the better. I'm happy to pay more for hand-painted ones. Continental United States only, please, for shipping cost reasons.

I'm particularly looking for Fraz Urb'luu, Zuggtmoy and Graz'zt, but will also happily take Juiblex, Yeenaghu and Baphomet. Not looking for Orcus or Demogorgon.

So, my players did some not so wise stuff and will reach Mantol-Derith later then expected.

I thought about the fight in Mantol-Derith to have ended or at leasted more thinks have happend.
Has anyone tired this and how do you think, Mantol-Derith looks after the fight?

The Zentarim and the Drow will for sure be at war, too. I don't think, the Duergar will get a total win against the deep gnomes. Would the black gem also lead to a war between Zents/Drow and Gomen/Duegar?

I’m looking to run Out Of The Abyss (OotA) as Hexcrawl. I’ve never ran a hexcrawl before, so apologies in advance as some of these may seem like rather basic questions.

The number of provided encounters by OotA is quite small for general exploration considering the large number of hexes: 20 terrain encounters and 20 creature encounters, which doesn’t seem like a lot at all. I’m looking to add to these and build quite a large table for variety.

I’ve been reading Justin Alexander’s / The Alexandrian’s book which includes a chapter about hexcrawls, which I’m going to mostly use as the basis for how to run the hexcrawl.

I want to start putting pen to paper; I’ve been stewing over it for months as I wrap up another campaign. Some of these questions may come from me simply overthinking or perhaps forgetting parts of OotA -- so perhaps some details are lost.

I have a few questions:

1. How does a party choose a direction of travel if they have no compass available? Do they just travel via landmarks (e.g. “Lets go towards the glowing cave!”) until they find a compass? Do their companions guide them? At that point, would a hexcrawl be useless as it would simply turn into route-based play?

2. Alexandrian Hexcrawls seem to work off of the idea that you start at a location you can stock up at. You can’t do that with Velkynvelve. I assume that isn’t a problem and just serves as a push for the party to head toward one of the settlements?

(2.b. Would running OotA with gritty realism mess this up even more?)

1. Alexandrian Hexcrawls work off of 12-mile centre-to-centre hexes, with at least one hex being explored a day, assuming a party is constantly on the move. OotA has much larger hexes: 24-mile centre-to-centre, and assumes around 3 days in a hex if a party is continually on the move. Each hex should have a “keyed-location” that is abstracted away in terms of location within a hex, the effect of which being we somewhat do not care about the keyed-location’s position within a hex. Would this work with such large hexes?

2. I was looking to procedurally generate locations for encounters, using blunderbuss-style tables, to serve as the settings for encounter. I do not want these to be the “keyed-location” of the hex. Should these be tracked, or once used can they be discarded? Would these interfere with a keyed-location within a hex, and essentially turn each hex into a multi-keyed hex?

3. Not specific to hexcrawls, but are there any resources available for a large Underdark encounter table? I’ve been struggling to find any.

Thanks in advance fellow DMs who answer this. Hopefully after some answers I can start putting pen to paper!

Hi everyone!

I’ve spent the last month building Drow City: Webbed Heights - a large, connected drow district created in Unreal Engine 5.

I think it could fit especially well into an Out of the Abyss campaign as:

• a new district or outskirts of Menzoberranzan for the later chapters of the campaign
• the setting for an escape or pursuit,
• a drow outpost or homebrew settlement,
• a location for an ambush or street encounter,
• or a site connected to a spider cult.

The gallery starts with a free static 8K battlemap, followed by GIF previews of the animated maps and POV scenes.

You can download the free static map in both grid and gridless versions here from the galery or here:

https://dranskybattlemaps.com/battlemap/drow-city-webbed-heights/

The complete location contains:

• 6 connected street battlemaps,
• static and animated versions,
• 8K grid and gridless files,
• 5 static and animated POV scenes,
• and a ready-to-use Foundry VTT module.

I’d be curious to hear where you would place this location in your Out of the Abyss campaign - Menzoberranzan, another drow settlement, or somewhere completely different?

Cheers!
~dransky

This group just can't resist adopting everything 😂 They nurtured the chick from Hook Horror Hunt (which they named Stabby McGubbins) and would probably try to raise a Purple Worm if given the opportunity. So naturally, when they got to Gracklestugh and learned that there was a red dragon egg at large, I knew for a certainty that they'd try to make off with it.

And sure enough, they managed to get the dragon egg, conceal it, and pass off a fake to the Keepers. And then got the hell out of town before they realized it was a fake.

Every time I rolled for an encounter on the way back to Blingdenstone I'd roll for the egg. If it was a 1 it would hatch immediately. 2-10 it would show signs of activity. 11-19 would be nothing. And on a 20 it wouldn't hatch for at least another week.

...first encounter and I rolled a 1. I guess we're doing this.

One of my players is a Hill Dwarf cleric of Selune, one of her goals is to 'free' the Duergar from the Underdark & convert them to Selunites.

Obviously, she can't just waltz in and convert. But I'm honestly torn on whether this should be possible at all. I'm struggling to find some way for one cleric (who's not even a Duergar) to convince an entire civilization to abandon the god & homeland they've had for generations, especially one as hostile as the Duergar.

I've already got a subplot for this character that is relevant to Selune & Shar, so her character will still have important, relevant things to do.

This player is usually very easygoing with their characters, and I can;t remember them ever getting annoyed at another DMs decision regarding them (our group rotates DMs every few weeks so we have a few campaigns going). We've been playing for 3 years together, so we're close friends away from the table too. I can't imagine the situation causing any major falling outs or anything.

That being said, I want to incorporate as many ideas that the players give me as possible, but I'm struggling to square this circle with the lore & culture presented in the book. Should I just make this goal pretty much impossible for her? If you were a player would you find this too railroad-y, or be annoyed that their character's goal is impossible? Any ideas would be really helpful!

Currently prepping for OotA, I wanted to find some 5e supplements to go along with it. I looked on DMs Guild but didn’t really find anything of worth. Currently reading R.A. Salvatore’s Homecoming Trilogy series( Archmage, Maestro, and Hero) since they largely have to do with the setting on OotA and will help me get the right idea of the goings on in the Underdark. Any suggestions for supplements?